WRITTEN BY DON CAMPBELL

Demir Export was founded in 1957 and has always been a very active player in the Turkish mining sector. With a number of glowing projects underway we spoke with General Manager Savas Sahin regarding the ongoing projects.

ACTIVELY INVESTING IN

The Future

64 | Endeavour Magazine

The main activities of Demir Export revolve around iron ore

production for domestic integrated steel mills. As a group

they are constantly investing in exploration and development

of new greenfield iron ore mines, as well as improvement of their

processing facilities at their existing operations.

Another business unit is coal. Currently they are providing 6.5

Mtpa coal at Kangal TPP operated by another Turkish private

company. At Turkish Coal Enterprises’ Soma coal fields they are

developing Eynez East UG Coal Mine, which will start commercial

production in 2015. This project is now at an advanced

development stage. The mining method at Eynez East will be

sublevel LTCC (longwall top coal caving) which is a very

unique coal mining method and the operation will be

fully mechanized from top down.

The base metal (copper in

concentrate) is being mined at their

Lahanos mine in northeast Turkey,

this is a small scale UG mine and

alongside that Demir Export are

exploring the possibility of base

metals in northwest Turkey. One

of their targets is Ulutas (Erzurum

province), where they are exploring

for porphyry Cu-Mo deposit. So far,

the exploration results, 17.000 meters

of core drilling completed and ongoing, proved

DEMIR EXPORT

“Demir Export produces 25% of the iron ore production in Turkey, representing 1.5 million tonnes per year,” Mr. Sahin tells us, “Core business is iron ore, but the future will be iron, gold and coal in three main business units including ferrous - iron, energy - coal and base metals - gold, copper and zinc. Construction for production for gold mine is under way.”“We are active in three iron ore zones; Sivas, Kayseri, and Balıkesir. In total, we have seven iron ore mines, from where we are producing almost 1.5 million tonnes every year.” Mr. Sahin reveals.

Endeavour Magazine | 65

to support their efforts to chase a +500 Mton resource with local high

grade intersections.

“In 2013 we have started our first gold mine project, Bakırtepe

in Sivas province,” Mr. Sahin explains, “However, the construction was

halted for permitting issues and we are expecting the construction

will restart in early next year and our target is to pour the first gold

dôre by the end of 2014. Our exploration for gold also continues in

different exploration tenements, in central and western Anatolia.”

Staff“We have 975 people working at our operations and head

office in Ankara,” Mr. Sahin adds, “Including the contractors and

subcontractors, this number reaches up to 1500,”

“We have three layers of training,” he adds, “The first layer is

generic HSE training given to all employees when they first start

working with us. Other HSE training packages are also provided for

the site personnel, such as risk management, incident reporting, etc.

Some blue collar employees also receive technical training as well.

Especially mechanical and electrical people receive specific training

on the equipment they are dealing with.”

The second layer is training for site supervisors. This training

generally revolves around safety issues, such as incident/accident

investigation, risk management, hazard identification and so on. The

third layer of training is for developing managerial skills of managers

and supervisors.

“Leadership training is given to our superintendents and

managers,” he points out, “And moreover, our very technical training

(as required) is provided to our engineers and geologists, such as 3D

software trainings, project management and advanced excel training.

Our most important asset is

our people.”

With this principle, Demir

Export places great importance

on training to address the

development of professional

knowledge and the skills of their

people. In this regard, training

plans are created for all staff

members, and the related training

is conducted within the year and

monitored by the HR department.

CustomersDemir Export’s biggest

customers are domestic

integrated steel mills, namely

Kardemir, Erdemir and Isdemir,

and overseas buyers. The

most important demands of

their customers are consistent

product quality and increasing

production capacity and these

are the important points

that they take care to ensure

customer satisfaction.

“Although it looks like the

resources market is not as

competitive, it is not true for

the iron ore market,” Mr. Sahin

explains, “Domestic iron ore

market is the same. As long as

we honour our contracts from

quality and quantity aspects

we are more successful in

delivering what we committed.

So far, we have a very good and

prospective relationship with

our iron ore customers and

we are caring to continue this

situation.”

DEMIR EXPORT

“Our biggest investment is our people. We have expanded the

exploration and project development teams in our headquarters.. We have also added new positions in our operations to improve and extend on-site planning and project development skills and capabilities.”

Valued PartnersBusiness is all about building

relationships and these form the

foundation upon which future

projects can be based. One such

company is IBS.

“We have been working with

Demir Export for a couple of

years,” says Bruce Field, Head

of Sales at IBS, “I first met Savas

Sahin in Ankara in November

2011 and since then there have

been numerous meetings – at

the mine site in Soma, Turkey,

here in our factory in Germany

and also, in February this year,

in Poland on an underground pit

visit to see one of our machines

in operation.”

Demir Export is in the

process of opening a new

underground coal mine (Eynez

East) in the Soma area, Manisa

District to the north of Izmir in

Turkey (see above). They opted

for roadheaders for the gate

road development as well as for

the main access headings and

completion of the two surface

drifts. After final negotiations

at Bauma in Munich in April

this year they ordered the first

roadheader from IBS together

with an articulating bridge belt

conveyor system, power supply

cable and a package of spare

parts. The machine has an

increased cutting height of 4.5m

to suit their gate road profiles

and was shipped in July and

commissioned in August this

year.

“For the Soma mine,” Bruce continues, “They require at least

two more roadheaders and we are in the middle of technical and

commercial negotiations. We understand that they have plans for

other bigger underground coal mining projects in Turkey and that

the Soma mine is a stepping stone for them to acquire experience

in that field. Obviously we hope that if their experience with us and

our Agents Labris in Soma is good they will come back to us for other

projects in the future.”

2014 And Beyond“The most exciting project for 2014, is our ULUTAS (in Erzurum

province) Cu-Mo project. This project was acquired from Mining

Bureau’s bidding process in 2012 and we rapidly moved to the site

and completed all our geological mapping, initiated geophysical

inspection, and geochemistry to cover the entire potential of the

tenement.”

On top of this, Demir Exports have completed almost 17.000

meters of core drilling and the current situation of the project

is definitely exciting as they continue drilling and development

efforts to target a +500 Mt Cu-Mo porphyry deposit. This project

will be inserted in the project pipeline in 2016 with an aim to start

commercial production in 2018 or earlier and has a potential to be

largest base metal mine in the country in near future.

“Our diverse portfolio is expanding with gold and underground

coal mining,” says Mr. Sahin, “So far, we produce coal from an open pit

mine but now we will use fully mechanized method to produce coal

from underground. Underground coal production is becoming more

widespread in Turkey; therefore Eynez East Underground Coal mine

project is very critical for our company.”

The other exciting development is Bakırtepe Gold Project. Gold

production from Bakırtepe will be the first for Demir Export and it is

believed that it will be the first step to become a gold miner in Turkey.

These developments help Demir Export to consolidate its

position and being an international player. There are many domestic

and overseas opportunities in gold and base metal mining areas also

the historical developments of gold and mechanized underground

coal mining sectors show that new opportunities will come. With help

of new developments, Demir Export will be better positioned for the

upcoming opportunities.

“Our biggest investment is our people. We have expanded the

exploration and project development teams in our headquarters.

We have also added new positions in our operations to improve

and extend on-site planning and project development skills and

capabilities. Beginning from next year, we are thinking about bringing

experienced expats on board on contract basis to assist our local

workforce to develop and maintain international safety standards at

our operations.” Mr. Sahin concludes.

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DEMIR EXPORT

0090 312 415 4500

WWW.DEMIREXPORT.COM